North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's half-brother Pyong-il, the North's perpetual ambassador to Poland, is rumored to have been under house arrest since he arrived in Pyongyang in May.

A source familiar with the North's internal affairs on Thursday said Kim Pyong-il is under house arrest because Kim Jong-il's son and heir Jong-un and his followers are maneuvering to hold him in check. "Anyone who is believed to pose an obstacle to Kim Jong-un's succession, even members of his own family, is subject to elimination," the source added.

Experts say Kim Jong-un is deliberately trying to look like his grandfather Kim Il-sung to take advantage of nostalgia for the late regime founder, but Kim Pyong-il looks more like Kim Il-sung and is therefore regarded as a threat.

Since Kim Jong-il beat him to the succession in the 1960s and 70s, Kim Pyong-il has spent 23 years overseas, beginning with the ambassadorship in Hungary in 1988. He then became envoy to Bulgaria and Finland and has been in Poland since 1998. He has gone back to Pyongyang only a few times since Kim Il-sung died in July 1994.

This time observers speculate that he will spend some time in Pyongyang because his mother Kim Song-ae (87) is dying. But others speculate that he will go back to Poland in August after observing the anniversary of his father's death on July 8.

Piecing together information from the article, the current intel on Pyongil seems that he is locked up in a house where his mother lives and will be allowed to go back to his post in Poland after she dies or maybe even before that.

Pyong-il has been exposed to the outside(capitalist) world, so he we will be held under quarantine until House Kim is satisfied that he is not infected with Western ideas. This is Stalinist SOP. This is one of the reasons the Soviets locked up their own POW’s after the end of WWII. Uncle Joe considered them to be a political liability so he accused them being traders and cowards, thus locking them away.

5
posted on 06/30/2011 7:10:54 PM PDT
by oyez
(The difference in genius and stupidity is that genius has limits.)

Experts say Kim Jong-un is deliberately trying to look like his grandfather Kim Il-sung to take advantage of nostalgia for the late regime founder, but Kim Pyong-il looks more like Kim Il-sung and is therefore regarded as a threat.

A nation run by retards.

9
posted on 06/30/2011 7:45:44 PM PDT
by Junior_G
(Funny how liberals' love affair with Muslims began on 9/11)

Yes, he saw a lot: the fall of Berlin Wall, execution of Ceausescu couple in Romania, the collapse of Soviet Union, and emergence of former East European countries as new democratic countries. Especially Poland. His children grew up in E. Europe, too.

Kim Jong-eun is very paranoid now, which put even a currently marginal figure like Pyong-il in danger.

10
posted on 06/30/2011 7:47:15 PM PDT
by TigerLikesRooster
(The way to crush the bourgeois is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.